The Aero-X from Aerofex is a consumer level hover vehicle that can get you airborne for just $85,000.

We first reported in 2012 that hover vehicles were in development by Aerofex, an aerospace engineering corporation. At that time, the company wasn't planning on a manned version, but that seems to have changed. Hovering up to twelve feet and reaching speeds of 45 miles per hour, the Areo-X hover vehicle is "an off road vehicle that gets you off the ground."

The Aerofex website lists safety features that include vertical takeoffs and landings, ducts covering the carbon fiber fans, a roll bar, and optional air bags. It is possible for the Aero-X to be modified for different needs, such as surveying, search and rescue, disaster relief, or just fun flights.

The hoverbike can carry two people and can travel for an hour and fifteen minutes using standard automobile fuel. Unfortunately, it can't carry more than a 310 pound load, so you probably won't be able to carry your R2 unit and protocol droid with you.

Of course, we likely won't be replacing our cars in 2017 with hoverbikes or landspeeders. Still, the Aero-X is a step towards hover vehicles that are effective, accessible, and affordable. The consumer version of Aerofex's hoverbike is available to reserve for a $5,000 deposit, with a final price of $85,000. The Aero-X is expected to take off in 2017 and requires "just a weekend of training." You can see an older version in flight here.

Sounds cool, and I'd like it to succeed, but I imagine it will be regulated out of existence shortly for security reasons, much like how not everyone is flying around on a personal gyrocopter despite magazines like "Popular Mechanics" showing how easy it would be for everyone to have one. A lot of places have laws about personal flight, how far a device can take you off the ground, and similar things even if they aren't well known. This is largely why the jet packs and such that have been developed for decades haven't taken off and you haven't started seeing infrastructures built up for something like that which a lot of people would probably use.

The basic issue is that a lot of barriers don't work if people can fly over them, and there are issues with say people flying over traffic and such (you could fall on someone's car, or say crash into a house or go through someone's roof if you were drunk or lost control). Not to mention the whole issue of law enforcement, some guy does something, the police give chase, how exactly do you take that person down without killing them if they are flying? Even if the police also have flying vehicles the whole idea of being able to police them even with other flying vehicles is incredibly touchy.

Now you can say this thing only suspends itself 12' and goes 45 mph, but now imagine trying to stop that guy if he's doing something illegal. That 12' can make a huge difference, not to mention if this guy decides he wants to say drive over other cars since he's higher than most of them, and again a lot of fences and barriers meant to restrict access and entry are lower than that.

I'm not going to say personal flying vehicles won't happen, but it's something that probably won't occur until we see other technologies developed to support it. Over the years I've read some stuff about hypothetical 3 dimensional traffic systems, they even had stuff about it on TV when I was a kid, comparing it to say "The Jetsons" and other cartoons portraying such things as normal. It involves a lot of infrastructure though, as well as hypothetical technologies like force fields, tractor beams, and the like. After all if some flying cop car can trap/catch another flying vehicle in a tractor beam, or potentially use such a device to catch someone who is falling it becomes practical. Ditto if you can put up barriers in the form of energy fields or whatever that can cover an entire area to restrict entry or force vehicles to follow specific traffic patterns or whatever.

On the other hand, it is possible that vehicles like this might find their way into use specifically by the authorities and be illegal for anyone else to use or operate. After all a "hoverbike cop" could fly over traffic to respond to an emergency in record time, as could an ambulance or whatever. That means the tech might eventually wind up being sold under government contract, and require heavy licensing even for the authorities, and probably what many would consider unreasonably strict penalties for normal people using them, which might even hypothetically include an "on the spot" death penalty, intended as much for enforcement purposes as anything so the police wouldn't have to worry so much about bringing some guy zipping around in alive, they can just ground the vehicle/driver and if they live or die, it doesn't matter as long as they are stopped. Not a nice thing, but the alternative before a lot of other technology would be some murderer/rapist/thief being able to in theory get away with anything as long as they use a flying vehicle to flee due to it being nearly impossible to bring down the unwilling without killing them (or risking serious injury). Of course this whole vision probably won't fly either (pun intended).

If I had a million dollars If I had a million dollars I'd buy me a hover bike, a nice reliable flying mobile. From the pic on the link, I almost mistook this as a commercialized version of one of those homemade leafblower crafts. So glad this isn't that, and has substantially more power. Although the woods where I live are still entirely too dense to play out the scenes from Endor. Using standard auto fuel, what mileage does this get? How big is the tank? 15 minutes is a bit short with the distances I regularly travel, or for that matter, usage in a city where one could get ticketed for leapfrogging cars (though I would do that anyway just cuz). So it'd run outta gas at a stoplight, then what?If a vehicle like this was to become widely available commercially, I have the perfect bumper sticker!

Sounds like a lot of (incredibly dangerous) fun. I imagine it won't be very legal to use in public, but it's possible people will be able to rent them out for use on private land like we do for private race tracks or gun ranges. As Therumancer said, this could have interesting uses for police and others who need to get quickly to an emergency.